If you happened to catch the 71st Golden Globe Awards you witnessed quite the spectacle. I’m not talking about Jacqueline Bisset’s incoherent rambling or the stunning Jennifer Lawrence winning another award on her way to cementing her status as Queen of the World. While there are usually a couple titles that sweep the awards show, this year it wasn’t the case. The only noticeable trend on last night’s awards show was the tendency to hand awards out to straight actors who were nominated for playing gay characters.

This isn’t an entirely new concept. They’ve given awards out for playing these types of roles before, like when Tom Hanks won the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Philadelphia. Maybe it’s this year’s crop of actors that are the biggest problem. Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey both won Globes for Dallas Buyer’s Club and Michael Douglas won for his turn in Behind the Candelabra. These men seemed thrilled to win their awards but didn’t seem to have much appreciation for the people they were portraying.

Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey cozy up to each other in Dallas Buyers Club. Courtesy IMDb.

Jared Leto’s acceptance speech was perhaps the most offensive of all three. He made a few jokes at his expense, but nothing was really relevant to the film he won for. He described the process of his physical transformation, but said nothing of the emotional journey he had to go on to become the character. When Michael Douglas won his Emmy for Behind the Candelabra, he made jokes about anal sex. Did these men learn nothing from the roles they played?

Michael Douglas accepting his award. Courtesy IMDb.

While the actors mentioned can be described as “good” they are hardly the master thespians of our time. It seems the willingness to play gay is what is winning them awards rather than the performances themselves. While the roles are drastically different from the men who play them, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to call the performances caricatures.

We’ll see how the boys fare at the SAG Awards on January 18th. After that, we’ll have a pretty good idea whether or not The Oscars will be handed to heterosexuals who don’t even fully understand their queer counterparts. One last thing to note – much talked about Blue is the Warmest Color did not win the award for Best Foreign Language Film. What is the lesson here? This year gays with AIDs are in, lesbians are out.